While waiting for the new territorial continuity (i.e. the connections with Rome and Milan) to become fully operational, with unprecedented competition between Ita and Volotea, the island's airports are betting on summer 2022 and rely on low cost airlines. Over 18,000 flights to 91 destinations are expected in Cagliari in the next six months, 53 of which are international. In short: the focus is definitely on foreign tourism, after a two-year slowdown.
The news
The goal is to exceed 3.2 million passengers by the end of December. Fifteen new routes. Lots of news and some "comeback" on the bill of the island's most important airport: the connections with Bilbao, Carcassonne, Hanover, Lille, London Gatwick, Madrid, Nice, Nuremberg, Palma de Mallorca, Poznan, Seville, Strasbourg stand out, to which the Italian routes to Bolzano and Venice are added. In the bill there is also space for the flight of the S7 company to Moscow, still awaiting official confirmation due to the international scenario.
Preferences
The war, however, does not seem to have influenced much the choices of tourism "outgoing" from Sardinia: "For Easter the largest group of customers is the one going to Krakow, Poland", says Manuel Gattelli, of the travel agency Reitour , “Then we sold many packages for Europe and Italy. The most popular destinations? Palma de Mallorca, Bari, Matera and Lake Maggiore ».
It is still early to take the pulse of the summer holidays: "For the Sardinian market it is still early, usually reservations arrive later".
In Cagliari, more than half of the scoreboard is Ryanair or Volotea: the Irish company will guarantee 38 connections, compared to 20 for the Spanish low cost.
The data
In the three Sardinian airports, a number of routes never reached before is expected: 197 connections will be expected to help revive the airport sector, battered after two years of Covid which led to a dramatic drop in passenger traffic and a long use of layoffs for workers. The latest statistics released by Assoaeroporti let us glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel.
The recovery
The Alghero airport in February even managed to improve the data for 2019, closing the month with almost 54 thousand passengers and +6.1 percent compared to two years ago.
Even in Cagliari there are some signs of recovery, with 165 thousand travelers, 200 per cent if we take 2021 as a term of comparison, but still far (-27 per cent) from the 2019 result. In the same vein, Olbia airport: 37 thousand passengers in a month, double compared to last year but late (-25 percent) on pre-pandemic data.
Michele Ruffi
